Saturday, August 31, 2013

So, I have sort of promised to run some Fate games at my
local FLGS.I used to run
Pathfinder Society there several months back but grew tired of it pretty
quickly.I’ve been singing the
praises of Fate to one of the owners since well before Core was announced to
the world and even more so since the Kickstarter went live.He’s onboard and even ran a short-lived
Mass Effect game himself.But,
it’s come time for me to put up or shut up so I am going to run a series of
one-shots to show the power, fun, and flexibility that are inherent in
Fate.I am going to run some FAE,
some “straight” Core, and some hacked setting to show off the system.

After re-watching G.I. Joe: Retaliation, G.I. Joe: Resolute
(amazing, if you haven’t see it), and rereading a bunch of comics (both the old
Marvel stuff and the newer stuff from Devil’s Due) I’ve decided to work on that
setting first.My general
inclination is to use Core for this but I really want to try and use FAE.I really feel like it’s a great hack
for emulating 1980’s style Saturday morning cartoons.So I am going to start with FAE and see if it scratches the
right itch, if not I will go back to Core.

Step one is choose the Joe’s that will be available for the
mission.My plan is to have
characters that represent each Approach at Good (+3), which means twelve Joes
for my roster.

Here’s my short list:

Duke

Scarlett

Snake-eyes

Roadblock

Flint

Lady Jaye

Tunnel Rat

That leaves me needing five more.What I will probably do is stat those guys out and see what
“roles” I need to fill and then pick characters based on that.Or just switch to Core and build all of
my favorites…we’ll see.

For Aspects I am going to try and emulate the file cards
that came on the backs of the toy packages.I used to read those over and over as a kid and, at one
point, had them pretty much all memorized (I’m thinking about listing that on
my resume). Their High Concept
will be take from either their “role” at the top of the card or their Primary
Military Specialty (or both when they are the same). Their Trouble will come from the narrative on their card,
the information from their entry in the Order of Battle comics, or my knowledge
of the character. Finally the rest
of their aspects will come from the text on the card and their Secondary
Military Specialty. I’ll probably
Photoshop up some fancy looking character sheets that look like the old toy
cards too.

I am also thinking of bringing in the Organization rules from
Atomic Robo because they make a lot of sense in this case. Also Mike Olson used them for his RoboForce hack and it seemed like another cool Fate thing to show people.

That’s all for now, more to come soon.I am going to flesh out a character or
two and post them up here when I am done.I am going to do both Core and FAE to see which I like better.